1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a product management system and a product management method, and particularly relates to a product management system and a product management method for controlling the stock on a product display rack in a shopping center or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years and continuing, a large amount of products are displayed on product display racks in shopping centers and the like. A number of staff are required to manage such a large amount of products in stock.
There is therefore a demand for a system that allows easy recognition of presence/absence of the products on the product display racks.
A system for recognizing presence/absence of products is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-328710, wherein a sensor on a rack reports a stock status to a control center.
Such a conventional system merely reports a stock status to the control center, and does not report presence/absence of products to shoppers. Further, installation of such a system is not easy.